Richard Grenell

Richard Allen Grenell is an American diplomat, political advisor, and media consultant. He was the U.S. Ambassador to Germany from 2018 to 2020 and Acting Director of National Intelligence in the Trump cabinet in 2020. Grenell was a U. S. State Department spokesperson to the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration. He founded Capitol Media Partners, an international strategic media and public affairs consultancy.

About Richard Grenell in brief

Summary Richard GrenellRichard Allen Grenell is an American diplomat, political advisor, and media consultant. He was the U.S. Ambassador to Germany from 2018 to 2020 and Acting Director of National Intelligence in the Trump cabinet in 2020. Grenell was a U. S. State Department spokesperson to the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration. He founded Capitol Media Partners, an international strategic media and public affairs consultancy with offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Washington, D. C. In 2016, Grenell’s consulting firm accepted more than USD 100,000 from the Magyar Foundation of North America to provide public relations support for the Hungarian government of Viktor Orbán. In 2012, CNN ranked Grenell as one of the top five Republican consultants in social media, and Time magazine named Grenell one the Top 10 Political Twitter Feeds of 2014. He is the first openly gay person to work as a spokesperson for a Republican presidential candidate. He signed a 2013 amicus curiae brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage during the Hollingsworth v. Perry case. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, CBS News, CNN, Politico, Huffington Post, The Washington Times, Newsmax, and Al Jazeera. He received a master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University’s John F. F. Kennedy School of Government. In September 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Grenell to become the United States ambassador to Germany. After a significant delay, the Senate confirmed Grenell 56–42 on April 26, 2018.

His tenure in Germany was controversial and he was described as politically and diplomatically isolated due to his association with the far right and a perceived lack of professionalism. Within hours of taking office, he tweeted that German diplomats and business leaders should wind down their operations in Iran. The tweet was widely perceived as a threat with the Foreign Minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Junker, commenting that Grenell “does appear to need tutoring in the art of diplomacy” The Social Democratic Party of Germany urged the German government to summon the ambassador to summon Merkel to the Foreign Ministry to discuss how to deal with Grenell’s tweets. The man was accredited as a Special Presidential Envoy for Serbia and Kosovo Peace Negotiations and was sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence on May 3, 2018, making him the highest-ranking openly gay official ever in a cabinet position. He did not disclose this payment under the Foreign Agents Registration Act prior to his work in the Donald Trump administration. He was also under contract as a Fox News contributor, commenting on foreign affairs and the media. Grenell has worked as a political adviser to a number of prominent Republicans, including George Pataki and Dave Camp. He served as a foreign policy spokesperson for Republican candidate Mitt Romney during his 2012 presidential campaign. In 2008, he was appointed by President Bush as Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy for the U States Permanent Representative to the UN in New York.